Life Expectancy (34 page)

70

E
arlier, in a windy moment, I wrote that revenge and justice are twin braids in a line as thin as the high wire that an aerialist must walk, and if you can’t keep your balance, then you are doomed—and damned—regardless of whether you fall to the left or to the right of the line. A restrained response to evil is not moral, but neither is excessive violence.

The only anguishing moral dilemma that Lorrie carried out of that big top was related to whether she should have shot to wound and disable Virgilio Vivacemente or whether blowing him to bits with four well-placed, hollow-point rounds might have been justified.

She agonized over this for about twenty-four hours, but during a parade of desserts after dinner at my parents’ house on the evening of Sunday, April 17, as Vivacemente still lay in a morgue drawer, she achieved a satisfying catharsis. She decided that if she had shot the crazy son of a bitch
five
times, including four times after he was already dead instead of just three,
that
would have been an excessive and unjustifiable response. As it was, she had no doubt—nor did I—that she was on the side of the angels.

In any moral dilemma, as one strives to analyze one’s motives and actions, a speedier and usually satisfying resolution can be reached if one consumes abundant quantities of sugar.

As for me, I came out of the experience with no knotty moral issues. The truth of my conception didn’t change who I had become, who I was. I declined to dwell upon it.

More important, the fifth of my five days had come and gone. I had survived. Every member of my family remained healthy and alive, except for Grandma Rowena, and she had died in her sleep.

We had suffered a great deal en route to this safe harbor, but who does not suffer in life? When the pain passes, there is always cake.

Life insurance companies price their policies on the basis of many factors, including actuarial tables. They have arcane formulae to predict your life expectancy, and if they didn’t they would soon be out of business.

I do not define life expectancy by the length of life, however, but by the quality of it, by what I
expect
from it and by how well my expectations are met. What I have learned from my true father, Rudy, and from my true mother, Maddy, and from my glorious wife, and from my beloved children is that the more you expect from life, the more your expectations will be fulfilled. By laughing, you do not use up your laughter, but increase your store of it. The more you love, the more you will be loved. The more you give, the more you will receive.

Life proves that truth to me every hour, every day.

And life continues to surprise:

Fourteen months after the incident in the big top, Lorrie became pregnant. She had been told that she could never conceive again, and her doctors had been so certain of her barrenness that we took no precautions.

Considering the grievous wounds that Lorrie had survived and the fact that she had one kidney, Dr. Mello Melodeon counseled us to terminate.

In bed the night after receiving this news, Lorrie said, “We’ll never have the five. Four is the most there’s any hope of. This will be the last chance. Maybe it’s risky. Maybe it’s not.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered in the darkness.

“You can’t,” she said. “I’ll haunt you in this life and kick your ass for dawdling when you finally join me in the next.”

After a silence, I said, “I’m paralyzed by this.”

“Question.”

“What?”

“Once we were together and knew it was for always, after each of us had the strength of the other to rely on, when were we ever gutless?”

I thought about it awhile. Finally, I said, “When?”

“Never. So why start now?”

Months later, when little Rowena arrived, she popped out as easy as bread from a toaster. She was eighteen inches long. She weighed eight pounds even. She did not have syndactyly.

While we were still in the delivery room, as Charlene Coleman (on the eve of her retirement) handed our swaddled infant to Lorrie for the first time, a young redheaded nurse stepped into the doorway and asked to speak to Mello.

He conferred with her in the hallway for a few minutes, and when he returned, he brought her with him. “This is Brittany Walters,” he told us. “She works ICU, and she has a story you need to hear.”

According to Brittany Walters, an elderly woman named Edna Carter had been admitted to the ICU forty-eight hours earlier, after a massive stroke paralyzed her and left her unable to speak. Suddenly this evening Edna had sat up in bed—minutes before Lorrie delivered, as it turned out—no longer paralyzed. She had spoken clearly, too, and with urgency.

By the time Nurse Walters reached that point in her story, I dared not look at Lorrie. I didn’t know what I would see in her eyes, but I was afraid of the terror she would see in mine.

The nurse continued: “She insisted that a baby named Rowena would be born in this hospital in minutes. That Rowena would be eighteen inches long and weigh eight pounds on the nose.”

“Oh my,” said Charlene Coleman.

Nurse Walters held out a sheet of notepaper. “And Edna insisted that I write down these five days. When I’d done it…she fell back in her bed and died.”

My hand shook as I took the paper from her.

When I glanced at Mello Melodeon, he didn’t have as grim an expression as I thought a friend should have at a moment like this.

Reluctantly, I scanned the dates on the paper and murmured strickenly, “Five terrible days.”

“What did you say?” Nurse Walters asked.

“Five terrible days,” I repeated, but didn’t have the strength to explain.

“That’s not what Edna Carter said,” Nurse Walters told me.

“What did she say?” Mello urged her, but I could see that he knew the answer to his question.

Puzzled by our reactions, Nurse Walters said, “Well, she told me these were five glorious days, five especially joyful days to come in a blessed life. Isn’t that odd? Do you think it means anything?”

At last I met Lorrie’s eyes.

“Do you think it means anything?” I asked.

“My hunch is yeah.”

Folding the paper, tucking it in a pocket, I sighed. “It sure is spooky this side of paradise.”

“But lovely.”

“Mysterious.”

“Always.”

“Sweet.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “Sweet.”

Gently, reverently, I took tiny Rowena from Lorrie. So small she was, but in spirit and in potential, no smaller than any of us.

Holding her so that she faced away from me, I turned in a full circle. Even if her eyes were as yet unfocused, perhaps she could see the room in which she had been born and see the people who had been present for her entry. Perhaps she wondered about them and about what waited beyond this room.

Turning with her, turning, I said, “Rowena, this is the world. This is your life. Prepare to be enchanted.”

To Laura Albano,

who has such a good heart.

Strange brain, but good heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEAN KOONTZ, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.

Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:

Dean Koontz

P.O. Box 9529

Newport Beach, California 92658